Nearly all University of Iowa employees who took the 2020 Working at Iowa survey report they value and understand what is expected of them in their work, and that they understand how their job fits into the overall mission of the university.
Read an overview of the results, or view the full report.
The 2020 Working at Iowa survey was administered to 6,370 regular faculty and staff Oct. 19–30, 2020. Nearly 68%, or 4,349, of the eligible population responded, making it a highly reliable representation of university employees. UI Health Care administered its own survey to employees. Those results are not included in these data and will be released at a later date.
The 2020 results show:
- 96% of employees value and understand what is expected of them in their work,
- 95% understand how their job fits into the overall mission of the university,
- 94% say that their individual unit has a strong focus on providing excellent service, and
- 92% agree that their supervisor treats them with respect.
In addition, the agreement levels for all questions either improved or stayed the same from 2018 to 2020.
“Highly engaged employees are important to our success and productivity at the University of Iowa. The 2020 survey results show that the vast majority of employees responded positively on questions that measure engagement,” says Cheryl Reardon, chief human resources officer. “Faculty and staff also expressed an understanding of how their job contributes to the overall success of the university mission and clear job expectations. Providing excellent service was also a strong unit indicator.”
While many responses are encouraging, the survey also helped identify areas for improvement, including:
- 72% of employees agree that there are opportunities for promotion at the UI, and
- 74% of employees agree that workloads in their unit are fairly distributed.
Other improvement areas include recognition of faculty and staff accomplishments and constructive management of work conflicts.
University Human Resources will work with Faculty Senate, Staff Council, and the Office of the Provost to implement plans that address these areas.
University-wide results of the 2020 Working at Iowa survey are available at the University HR website, and each college, division, or campus unit that had 10 or more employees participate in the survey has received their results for use in gaining local perspective, celebrating successes, and driving area-specific improvement efforts.
In 2020, UI Health Care utilized the Working at Iowa Powered by Press Ganey, which allows benchmarking against other health care facilities and correlation with patient satisfaction surveys also conducted by Press Ganey.